Ex-psychiatrist admits selling prescriptions in Medicaid fraud

A former New York psychiatrist who maintained a medical practice at his High Falls home has plead guilty to charges he illegally sold thousands of prescriptions for depressants and narcotic drugs that were billed to Medicaid.

David Roemer, 44, of 1416 state Route 213, pleaded guilty Tuesday in state Supreme Court in the Bronx before Justice Phylis Bamberger to a charge of felony conspiracy. Roemer's plea was part of a negotiated plea deal. As part of the deal Roemer is expected to be sentenced May 7 to 3 to 10 years in prison.

Roemer and 33 other individuals were indicted in November 2003 on charges including criminal sale and possession of controlled substances, grand larceny and conspiracy, according to a press release from the state Attorney General's Office. The release said that by his plea Roemer admitted he was a key member of a conspiracy to defraud the Medicaid program and traffic in diverted medications worth millions of dollars on the street.

Roemer admitted that between May 2002 and November 2002 he unlawfully sold thousands of prescriptions for depressants and narcotic drugs to Medicaid recipients who were transported from New York City to his Ulster County practice by other members of the conspiracy, the release said. The prescriptions included ones for the addictive narcotic painkiller Percocet, the anti-anxiety drug Xanax, and OxyContin, a synthetic form of morphine.